Hi Ken, Finding the right terminology is important in persuading people that what you are doing is sensible.
"Cooling" and "refrigeration" could bring fears of overdoing the geoengineering, e.g. accidentally triggering an Ice Age (as some journalists worry!). I prefer the term "climate stabilisation". We may need to cool the Arctic well below its current temperature in order for the sea ice to reform, but for non-polar regions (i.e. most of the rest of the world), our initial aim should be to halt global warming - no more, no less. Basically the idea is to stop things getting worse. But an even better term might be "climate restoration", as we'd like to stop droughts rather than prolong them, restore the Arctic to a former condition, reverse the spread of deserts, etc. Thus, if possible, we could produce regional effects on climate for the benefit of those regions that have been already adversely affected by global warming. BTW, this is where marine cloud brightening could prove invaluable. Politically, I think "restoration" has the better connotations and sounds more valuable. And it leaves open the door to negotiate how far the restoration and to what original state/date (e.g. 80% towards pre-industrial). Cheers, John ----- Original Message ----- From: Ken Caldeira To: geoengineering Sent: Tuesday, November 25, 2008 9:10 AM Subject: [geo] the science and technology of climate cooling ??? I'd like to toss two other names into the ring for direct interventions into the climate system designed to cool Earth's climate: 1. Climate refrigerators produce climate refrigeration Literally, "to refrigerate" means in its original sense is "to cool again". With threatened loss of Arctic systems, "cooling again" is likely to be the goal. 2. Climate cooler or climate cooling -- Colloquially, a "cooler" is a "refrigerator" . With the Arctic losses, we may look to the science and technology of climate cooling to reverse some of the effects of global warming. ___________________________________________________ Ken Caldeira Carnegie Institution Dept of Global Ecology 260 Panama Street, Stanford, CA 94305 USA [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://dge.stanford.edu/DGE/CIWDGE/labs/caldeiralab +1 650 704 7212; fax: +1 650 462 5968 --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "geoengineering" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
